Honestly I think we should shut down for a few days and clean up the forums? Delete old uneeded topics and users?

Also Is it possible to allow users to delete their own posts? I have seen many times "Edit: Delete me" And things of the sort by users. If we were allowed to delete out own posts this wold save time bloat and allow the Moderators to worry about more important things then deleting blank posts._________________~Puppy Linux~ Where mans best friend becomes PCs best friend

I don't understand the concern with excess verbiage in the Forum... It is very easy to ignore what is not relevant to what you seek. It is a tremendously valuable Puppy database, probably the most valuable Puppy resource after the distributions themselves! (I'm not saying to retain obvious vandalism etc on purpose, but if that is a problem y'all are already dealing with it so well that I never see it.) I don't think any of us have enough excess time to spend making everything neat and tidy in a way that would be sure not to discard stuff of potential use.

I think the legacy infobase is so important that even if we could all agree on a better way to organize the Forum, and were able to implement, it might be a bad idea, because it would confuse the relation of new stuff to old stuff. So I'd say any changes should be quite incremental and compatible. Maybe the most we can do is better annotate what material belongs where, and improve the links that appear around each page (such as the deprecated goosee reference at the top of each page).

But, seriously, someone other than our generous Forum host needs to be backing up the whole thing offline from time to time and have some clear idea about how to restore to working form on another ISP should that ever be necessary... (The only way to really know a backup is usable is to use it.)

I backed it up on the 31st but I don't know what I'd do with the backup file if the site goes down. It's JohnMurga's website. I back it up in case someone vandalizes the forum but I can still log on and use the Admin stuff.

The DB backup you have is probably imcomplete as it wouldn't include the file attachment stuff ... Either way there is more than just the DB. I have backups of everything and can re-create the forum from scratch fairly quickly with these. I take backups every couple of weeks.

kethd wrote:

But, seriously, someone other than our generous Forum host needs to be backing up the whole thing offline from time to time and have some clear idea about how to restore to working form on another ISP should that ever be necessary... (The only way to really know a backup is usable is to use it.)

Currently providing access to that also entails implicitly providing access to a lot of personal information which is held in the database. I have had a lot of offers of storage following the my bandwidth issues, so I may consider uploading a backup to these locations along with an encrypted dump of the database (that say only Flash, Barry and myself might have the key for).

However ... The time entailed in doing this (along with posting restore instructions) may be better employed upgrading the board (something that I have been promising to do for A LONG TIME).

Being new to puppy and these forums, I don't know what 'quirks' people use here.
{disclaimer}Also I'm not going to put my normal effort at using diplomatic language in pointing out 'problems' in this one post. If I reply I'll be back to saying the same thing - nicer. I haven't been here long enough to have any sort of grudge against anyone here. I know we have friendly people here who provide useful, intresting and fun information... even when it isn't the easiest to find.{end disclaimer}

For example, some places don't like 20 topics on X (no place likes 20 topics on X in one day). Others refer to adding to real old topics as 'necromancy' and isn't appreciated. (And these concerns depend on how far back the system keeps the old info, and how good that forum's search tools are.)
Puppy is very complicated in comparision, because I don't see where any community standards we have are posted. We have one active and two dead forums, a wiki (maybe 2 wikis), new release notes /appear/ to be posted in three different places each covering different but similar information so none feels complete.
http://www.goosee.com/puppy/ has in the upper right corner: LATEST VERSION: 1.0.6 (I think we can all agree that even if we aren't all using it yet that 1.0.7 is now the most recent).
The wiki refers to pupweb.org as puppy's homepage, but the link at the top of this screen says Puppy home page: www.goosee.com/puppy AFAIK they're effectively the same site (a redirect, or a mirror).
The forum FAQ - http://www.murga.org/~puppy/faq.php is obviously the vague FAQ that comes with the software, making multiple references to what the owner/admin has decided. The forum is up and running, obviously the admin has decided on a number of those issues, a truely excellent forum software would update those FAQ entries when the admin sets his preferences. (I know of no software that's actually that good, but...)

While I'm ranting and allowing myself to be undiplomatic, look at the front page of the wiki, doesn't it seam that that's a few too many sites to all be core to helping Puppy linux? Couldn't half of those site be moved to another page within the wiki? Still useful and important in their own way, but not cluttering the homepage. I see 4 links to download puppy, but none are a direct link. Two remain within the wiki, one dumps you on the ftp site, the other takes you to pupweb.org And this next comment reflects my English language and US centric outlook, but wouldn't the page look 90% more professional if that ugly language bar was dropped to the bottom of the page? Or eliminated and made a simple "Language Options" link near "Change Settings/Logout"? The mainpage should be small and effective; like Puppy itself, I shouldn't need to scroll to find the dinky little search box, or the link to 'just what I need' should be there (I know mind reading software i not yet available...).

Okay back to the forum...
Where is the All My New Replies link? How do I tell the forum to jump to the new message in the thread instead of making me guess where the new messages start, vs the ones I've already read (some 3 or 4 times)?

On community standards, do we prefer to crosslink back and forth between all relivant sources (making wiki pages that jump to 3-4 forum topics as apprpriate, then make the user figure out what in the thread was important) or do we consolidate, clairify, disclaim, and make authoritive and end threads with "And most of the useful information I've reposted as this, this, and that, wiki page - please check my work."

Again, I'm not trying to get anyone mad, nor be a troll, but I'm the type of person who works better with structure; and learned back in the BBS days to lurk and get a feeeling before posting and making a fool of oneself. Here I couldn't get the feeling of the puppy community in observation, nor are the standards posted where I remember seeing them. I know everyone here wants their Puppy to work, work better, be better. I know everyone has their own standard of better too.

Yaverot,
I had a lot of thoughts like yours, at first, about Puppy Forum etc. Though you seem to have made more of a study of it!

And I can't really disagree with anything you say (I'm not going to think about those kind of details too hard right now).

I just say, I have grown very comfortable with the Forum. I am sure it could be MUCH better. But I am very grateful for how well it DOES work. I find the "View your posts" tool to be extremely effective and efficient, once you get involved in posting.

The simple fact of the matter seems to be, we are all just volunteers, and the whole Puppy universe just is what it is. Criticisms like yours are invaluable -- a person only has fresh eyes once, and I can no longer see those kinds of flaws in Puppy status quo. But whoever has the power to make deep structural fixes to things is probably doing other things, and probably for good reasons. Many kinds of deep changes might have unintended consequences, and might require endless troublesome group discussion to make decisions about...

So, I say, keep making suggestions, but don't be offended if they seem to be ignored. Ultimately, the most useful thing you can do is get so involved with Puppy that you know enough and are in a position to actually make some little part of things better, as best you can (and then be faced with all the opinions of others that might have other views...)

In the meantime, do focus on finding the parts of the Puppy Universe that work the best for you -- and send back messages in bottles to clue the rest of us in on the best stuff!

The Forum Front Page would entice me more to visit the various Fora if the Subject-title of the Last Posts in each one could be listed, too.

I did just see an inappropriate-seeming odd-ball post yesterday; if y'all want to deputize me with the power to take such down, I might as well be useful while I'm hanging out here... (I didn't see any flagging system for the masses.)

Thank you for taking my post as I intended it.
I don't know if any of you have used the forums at http://gametz.com the only person there that gets paid is the siteowner/programmer and he's not actually making money. All the mods, mini-mods and the NT (I'm on the NT) is volenteer - ones the owner trusts.

<start edit, continuation after dinner>

I know their likes/dislikes, in general. No piracy, if you're advertising an eBay auction, eBay better be in the subject line, if you want to talk to the owner post in site_feedback.... While everyone appears to ignore it, the site rules are posted under rules and cover lots of informatin about the site, from what makes an item Excellent vs Good, to how loosely piracy is defined to avoid legeal troubles, to how to setup your custom color scheme.

|>Though you seem to have made more of a study of it!
Well, I tried to get all my rant out in one post, it normally takes me over an hour per post as I check and recheck to make sure I'm not being _unintentionally_ insulting. Since everyplace you need a username and a password, I now make a careful study to determine if a group is worth the effort of signing up, and memorizing another password. I have 3 places I routinely visit, that even after years, aren't worth my persicieve 'sign-up cost'.
At gameTZ no one cares if you restart a topic if the _system_ closes it, nor do people get mad when you post in a thread just before the system does so, so it doesn't get closed. Other places, like the forum for the SGVY webcomic, get mad if you post in a 'dead' thread which hasn't been commented on within the last week, although their system didn't close a topic until it went a month w/o a post. (That's where I got the 'necromancy' term in reguards to forums.)
Like I said, I learned lurk - back in the BBS days, and with off-line readers and .qwk packets you normally had a good 24 hours before your poorly worded comment became unretractable, but allowed me to learn the difference for different types of groups, but it gets me stuck when a group isn't active enough for me to see their mores, nor do they have it posted someplace.

|>I find the "View your posts" tool to be extremely effective
And where is this little --tool-- gem hidden? To refind this topic, I had to Memberlist -> sort username (reverse) -> click my name -> then click "view this user's posts" or something like that. While eventually coming to what I want, it hardly compares to clicking the A in [A]MNR. I still need to scroll and find where to continue from.

Well, I guess I'll start digging up those gems we have all around here, and making what seams to me to be conherent resources. Let me know if I start crossing the line on any unwriten rules.

Yaverot,
I feel reading your post that you have a personality like mine -- too careful! (Even if you could use some spellchecking...)
You don't have to worry too much around Puppy-land. It is a friendly place, not too big, not too small.
You can easily contribute. Just try to be helpful, wherever you see a chance. Do research, post links. Come over and help fix up the wiki... Everytime you learn something, come back and teach the rest of us.

The Forum (and the wiki) automatically sign me in, right away. Some people seem to have problems, but for me it always works -- too well! I don't remember how to log in anymore...

When I go to the main page of the Forum, it says "View your posts" right there up in the right corner. One click and I have a big list, with the most recently commented at the top. Very efficient! This has the good/bad effect that I am very encouraged to comment on anything that interests me, since then I will be able to follow future comments. (If we ever thought this was a problem, we would have to offer "watch this thread" so people would not have to comment. But I don't even know if that feature is not already here -- I just use what I have stumbled on that works.)

The forum is slow again
I can create a temp or even permenant forum on my new server
but I am loath to do so
John is an experienced bullentin board host (from the tech side) - I am not
I would be happier to do this in 3 to 6 months

Why the slow down?
Too many browsers?
Bandwidth?

Should we start using Puppians board until something is sorted?_________________Puppy WIKI

I've noticed it too. It's erratic, and very annoying. Sometimes it's fast and sometimes it takes so long to respond that I do something else, and by the time I get back to the forum I'm no longer logged in. I wondered if it might be due to that thing where you set up your browser to download a site by several connections simultaneously.

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